Haiku of RICHARD WRIGHT(44)

(Original)
A man leaves his house
And walks around his winter fields
And then goes back in.

(Japanese version)
男が家から出てきて
冬野を歩く
そしてまた家に入る

(Hosai）
雪の戸をあけてしめた女の顔

(English version)
The look of a woman
Who opened and closed
The snowy door.

■Somehow both these haiku are funny. Actions of the man and the woman are in a margin of eveyday life expressed by them. That's why they act half unconsiously. And at the same time, their actions give us a kind of unavoidable feeling. Two haiku must catch them off guard just like the garden viewed from its toilet window.

Haiku of RICHARD WRIGHT(43)

(Original)
What river is that
Meandering through the mist
In fields of young corn?

(Japanese version)
どんな川なんだろう
初もろこし畑の
霧の中を蛇行しているのは

■Wright feels a sign of the river. Everything is in the mist. These fields might be the places where the faint sound of the river is heard in the distance. This time I can't find out haiku of Hosai equivalent to that of Wright.

Haiku of RICHARD WRIGHT(42)

(Original)
Seen from a hilltop,
Shadowy in winter rain,
A man and his mule.


(Japanese version)
丘の上から見ると
冬の雨の中
幻のように人とラバ



(Hosai）
白壁雨のあとある

(English version)
On a white wall
Marks of rain.

■The haiku of Wright has a scene in winter rain. The rain blurs the distinction between reality and shadow. In the case of Hosai, he expresses marks of rain without seeing real falling rain. This is also shadowy.